Russian Tensions
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But some of the Russian tanks are flying the Soviet flag, and some nationalists wear jackets with CCCP on the back.
Lenin and Stalin are nationalist heroes for Russian nationalists, and the Putin regime conflates them into one with its “Atomic Orthodoxy” and the Tsars. Stalin is now St. Josef Stalin and his image is in the churches, showing him carrying a small cross. St. Seraphim of Sarov has been made patron saint of nuclear weapons, and the red star is used side by side with the Russian Cross. Lenin’s empty shell still lies obscenely on view, I believe, and I think the restoration of statues perfectly plausible in this psychotic pastiche that is modern Russian nationalism – a hotchpotch of historical eras all jumbled up.
Stalin ikon.
More than 50% of the Russian want the Soviet Union back again and millions still worship Stalin and Lenin, most of them are not ‘communists”, they are nationalists and they feel that during the time of the Soviet Union they had more protection and nationalism prevailed and that Stalin and Lenin were Russian nationalists. In Georgia still, they worship Joseph Stalin, and during the time of the WW2 the Russian Orthodox Church said that Stalin was the apostle of God who was going to save the Soviet Union from the devil of Nazism
Fair enough. Ok there will be nostalgics in the Russian army for the old USSR. But I still don’t believe that they restored that statute of Lenin or even that it was restored at all. The Ukrainian side also has an interest in cultivating the idea that the Russian government wants to recreate the USSR.
I think they are too busy killing to be restoring statues. Maybe they’ll renovate some churches along the way, or do some illuminated art?
That was part of my point. They have better — or, rather, worse — things to do.
There are also nostalgics in Russia for the pre-Bolshevik, Tsarist regime, including, apparently, Putin.
They do not have to restore any of Lenin’s statutes. Ukraine’s had more than 5 000 Lenin monuments and more than a thousand were kept including a bunch of statues. There are around three Lenin statutes in the USA placed on private property and one of them is owned by a business
https://seattle.curbed.com/2019/8/27/20830552/seattle-fremont-vladimir-lenin-statue-history
More about Lenin statutes in Ukraine here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-53500436.amp
The ironic thing is that, as Putin himself has pointed out, it was Lenin who created Ukraine by making it a separate administrative unit of Bolshevik Russia:
https://huri.harvard.edu/news/serhii-plokhii-casus-belli-did-lenin-create-modern-ukraine
Lenin sent Trotsky, known as “the butcher of the Ukraine” to crush opposition there. When the Whites were defeated by Makhno, with Trotsky claiming the credit, the Reds then turned on the peasantry, for whom Makhno was a protector from both the nationalists and the Bolsheviks.
The title “butcher of the Ukraine” was also conferred on Khrushchev whilst he was Stalin’s henchman.
As for the Whites in the Ukraine, led by Denikin, they burned peasants alive, nailed to doors and thrown on pyres.
https://mubi.com/films/state-funeral
I highly recommend this astonishing documentary by Sergei Loznitsa.
MUBI is a streaming platform specialising in “Art House” movies. They offer a weeks free trial. A further four free weeks is offered if you decide to cancel.
This is a must see for anyone. Sadly phones and tellies are smarter than workers nowadays.
By today’s legalistic standards Trotsky would be Ukrainian as would Martov, Brezhnev and Khrushchev. Or would they? Which goes to show how stupid nationalism and “national identity” are.
Yes, exactly. What does Bierce say? “Flag, n. A piece of colored rag … borne by ships and troops … serving the same purpose as the signs in public parks which read “Rubbish may be shot here.””
The west of Ukraine has been Catholic (Uniate) for centuries, viewing “schismatic” Russians as savages.. A legacy of the massive Polish-Lithuanian kingdom which stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Gogol’s Taras Bulba, a hymn to Orthodox Russian nationalistic madness, but still an exciting novel.
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